One of the attractions of Islam is the direct nature of a Muslim’s relationship with God. Everyone has a direct line  – you don’t need to dial via a priest or saint. This little girl on Sunnipath takes that idea to the next level.  :)

“SunniPath is the vanguard of combining religion and technology. A funny thing happened a few days ago. I was reading a dua at a remote mosque. I didn’t have it memorized so I was reading along with a recording on my iphone. A five to six year old Palestinian girl came up to me and pointed at the iphone and said, “Aysh hadha (what’s that)?” I responded, a telephone. Thinking I was reading Quran, she continued her inquiry, “You’re reading Quran on a telephone?” Laughingly, I tried my best to explain, “No, no. It’s also an electronic device as well that can play Quran and I read along.” With a look of amazement on her face she blurted, “Are you talking to Allah on a telephone?” I thought about it and I guess I was since I was making dua and using an iphone. It was a bit of a reach but I didn’t want to disappoint her. “Yup.” Her eyes got bigger. “Can I try?” I shrugged my shoulders and put the headphones on her. “Ya Allah, bidee diraja (O Allah, I want a bicycle).”

Source: Zaheer Razack at Sunnipath

Outwitted

He drew a circle that shut me out–
Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

Edwin Markham (1852-1940)

I came across something a little different. I wasn’t sure what to expect of something calling itself British Muslim Song. I’m always a little starheartcautious around English nasheed offerings because so many well-meaning creations are just bad translations with cringe-worthy lyrics. I’m sorry Sami Yusuf, you have a lovely voice and I’m sure you’re a jolly-nice-fellow but some of your rhymes are verging on the criminal.

And then there’s also that British Muslim choir, Harmonia Alcorani, at the opposite spectrum. They have some decent lyrics, but I can’t stand that choir-boy warbling. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being prejudicialist.  I was once an unlikely member of the school choir myself I’ll have you know, and have squawked my way through many a ‘Morning Has Broken’ and ‘When a Knight Won His Spurs’ (tho you’ll be relieved to hear you won’t catch me auditioning for Britain’s Got Talent,  like some kind of hijabi-Susan-Boyle ::shudder::). All that high-pitched soprano warbling leaves me cold. Deep bass Gregorian chanting is a little more palatable, but I couldn’t take a whole album.

Anyhow, when I came across a free download of  ‘He who Seeks (Nihavend No.34)’, sung by that very-nice-chap Dawud Wharnsby, I was a wee bit wary. At first hearing I mulled over its unfamiliar style and decided that it was different, but I wasn’t sure if I actually liked it. To give it a fair go I replayed it a couple of times…until I finally forgave it its novelty, and found myself truly moved.  I think it hints at folk music rather than straight-up choir, which probably helps. So despite my initial mis-givings I have to say it’s really grown on me and I hope there’ll be more to come. Just keep the pitch low and manly, and leave out the nightingales and roasted larks.

The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

“Allah the Almighty said:“I am as my servant thinks I am. I am with him when he makes mention of Me. If he makes mention of Me to himself, I make mention of him to Myself; and if he makes mention of Me in an assembly, I make mention of him in an assembly better than it. And if he draws near to Me an arm’s length, I draw near to him a fathom’s length. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed.” “

Hadith Qudsi - Bukhari and Muslim

rose_reflection

Let’s have a little poetic inspiration. Brace yourselves, there’s a rose, and even veils, but no alcohol (metaphorical or otherwise). I declare this poem Halalian:

‘Hidden behind the veil of mystery, Beauty is eternally free from the slightest stain of imperfection.  From the atoms of the world, He created a multitude of mirrors; into each one of them He cast the image of His Face; to the awakened eye, anything that appears beautiful is only a reflection of that Face.

Now that you have seen the reflection, hurry to its Source; in that primordial Light the reflection vanishes completely.  Do not linger far from that primal Source; when the reflection fades, you will be lost in darkness.  The reflection is as transient as the smile of a rose; if you want permanence, turn towards the Source; if you want fidelity, look to the Mine of faithfulness.  Why tear your soul apart over something here one moment and gone the next?’

Jami, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut – ‘Perfume of the Desert’

Source: wahiduddin.net

The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

“If a Muslim consoles his brother during some crisis, God will adorn him in garments of grace on the Day of Judgment.”

Hadith Ibn Majah

I’m a Sunni Muslim, and that’s as small a group as I wish to join. When I took my first tentative steps on the path towards my Creator I was bewildered by the sheer number of Muslim sub-groups out there, all busy bashing each other while claiming to have exclusive access to The Truth of Islam.

Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx

As a newbie it was truly frustrating trying to learn the basics whilst dodging the odd obsessions of each sub-group. Having been blessed with a suspicious and independent mind I decided not to take anything at face value or on hearsay, and resolved to have a rummage through them all. And so began a merry trip through Salafi conferences, Sufi dhikrs, Tablighi taleems, ISB picnics and Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Al Muhajiroun lectures. I wasn’t looking for a sense of belonging, a substitute family, a leader, a cause or even a new identity so I didn’t sign up to any of them. (Drat…I could have made a fortune with an I-was-a-Fundi-and-now-I’m-a-Government-Stooge expose.)

As Groucho Marx said, I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member. I don’t trust the herd instinct – lemmings, cliffs, enough said. I cannot bring myself to hand over control of my relationship with God to any other human being or collective. I’m more than willing to be educated but I wish to retain my questioning fitrah – it’s what brought me to faith in the first place. I’m honest enough to acknowledge that I might have gained a better Islamic education if I had joined up. It’s true that it’s easier to learn when you enrol in a single ’school’. But to do so I would have had to relinquish something precious – the clarity of sight attained from being on the fringes looking in. You glimpse a bigger picture than if you were tucked behind your barbed wire fence, trading insults with the deviant Others next door. It might be considered fence-sitting – but I prefer to see it as hovering over all of the fences, getting a good eyeful of their backyards. And what an eyeful it is! I could share my take on the quirks of each group, which might prove mildly amusing, but it wouldn’t be terribly constructive so I’ll resist.

The Borg

The Borg

Instead I’d like to comment generally on wierd group dynamics that can develop within a collective. Strange behaviours become normalised when your entire peer group is practising them. Conformity and obedience are prized beyond their fair due, and shame and guilt are invoked to attain them. If you don’t use your critical faculties, they atrophy. Within the group individuality, difference and dissent is threatening – for ‘we are Borg’. Questioning or criticism of the group, its leader or its beliefs and practices is not tolerated, no matter how constructive. How dare you say the Emperor has no clothes – off with your head! (not literally of course). Speaking of clothes, groups often enforce a uniform to encourage conformity and to facilitate group identification and it is more fiercely policed amongst women than men. People keep their doubts to themselves, afraid of being condemned (Astagfirullah, how could you think such a thing?) or worse, exposed before the others as a dissenter. If that is how internal criticism is viewed, imagine how external scrutiny is received. Every outsider critic is an enemy (driven by shaitan of course) intent on the destruction of the group and ultimately the Truth that only they preserve. And this paranoia is sometimes cultivated and used by the power elites within these groups, to isolate their members even further from any challenge posed by family, friends, or the rest of the world.

Inevitably, people leave the group. Burn-out rates are often quite high, but this doesn’t ring the alarm bells it should amongst remaining members. Instead it validates their high opinion of themselves as steadfast upon a path that is too pure, too taxing for just anyone to tread. To prevent possibility of contamination, ex-members are excommunicated and shunned, and in the worst cases slandered as crazy, unstable liars, with a bitter axe to grind. Some of which might well be true, in part at least– but it’s still slander intended to destroy credibility. Mental health can be a delicate thing, and these pressure-cooker groups are no places for fragile souls. Is it any surprise that damaged people are drawn to religion for its healing potential? Or that they are further fractured under the pressures of the Borg collective? There is no accountability for the harm caused to these people. Neither the leadership nor the elites are answerable to anyone (except their Lord) for the fall-out from their action or lack of it.

Bullying, power politics, oppressive hierarchies, kow-towing to privileged elites and cliques, misogyny, racism/tribalism, and the crushing of dissent, all manifest unchallenged within closed groups. You will find many of them (to some extent) in any place where more than a handful of humans are physically thrown together – whether in an extended family, school, workplace, government or desert-island-after-a-plane-crash.

The Muslim Ummah is itself a huge collective, and it is beautifully diverse and dissenting – sometimes frustratingly so. But anyone who has experienced Hajj will know that within that diversity there is also inspiration and grounding perspective. If you fence yourself off within a group, that fence also serves to divide you from other Muslims, from the safety of the ever-challenging Ummah, and beyond that humanity itself.

I’ve deliberately avoided using the word ‘cult’, because it is an over-used accusation flung against whichever group you don’t happen to agree with, whilst ignoring the cultishness of your own group. All closed groups display cult-like characteristics, and we should be honest enough to acknowledge the symptoms, and tackle them when they raise their ugly heads. Left to thrive, they breed and create a strange oppressive culture that is as far from Islam and the beautiful teachings of the merciful Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) as it is possible to get.

halal logoWhile browsing a natural beauty product site I came across this un-grammatical and amusing disclaimer. Tell me, are you Halalish?

“We don’t use any alcohols, or animal ingredients in our products they are not associated with harmful ingredients so are suitable for those who follow the Halal religion.”

Essentially Yours.co.uk

Extract from “I Saw Ramallah” by Mourid Barghouti

“It is easy to blur the truth with a simple linguistic trick: start your story from ‘Secondly.’ Yes, this is what Rabin did. He simply neglected to speak of what happened first. Start your story with “Secondly,” and the world will be turned upside-down. Start your story with “Secondly,” and the arrows of the Red Indians are the original criminals and the guns of the white men are entirely the victim. It is enough to start with “Secondly,” for the anger of the black man against the white to be barbarous. Start with “Secondly,” and Gandhi becomes responsible for the tragedies of the British. You only need to start your story with “Secondly,” and the burned Vietnamese will have wounded the humanity of the napalm, and Victor Jara’s songs will be the shameful thing and not Pinochet’s bullets, which killed so many thousands in the Santiago stadium. It is enough to start the story with “Secondly,” for my grandmother, Umm ‘Ata, to become the criminal and Ariel Sharon her victim. …

The houses built on top of ours gallantly declare their willingness to understand our odd predilection toward living in camps scattered in the Diaspora of gods and flies, as though we had begged them to throw us out of our homes and to send their bulldozers to destroy them in front of our very eyes. Their generous guns in Deir Yassin forgive us the fact that they piled our bodies high at the sunset hour there one day. Their fighter jets forgive the graves of our martyrs in Beirut. Their soldiers forgive the tendency of our teenagers’ bones to break. Israel the victim polishes its hot, red knife with the sheen of forgiveness.”

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